Part 2

You see she had to dress up two or three times a day, and keep the babe dressed up slick. And she had to promenade down to the waterin’-place, and drink jist such a time, and it went against her stomach, and almost upset her every time. And she had to go a-ridin’, and out on the water in boats and yots, and that made her sick, too, and had to play crokey, and be up till midnight to parties. You see she had to do all this, ruther than let Mrs. Skidmore get in ahead on her, and do more than she did, and be more genteel than she wus, and rest more.

And then the town bein’ full, and runnin’ over, they wus cooped up in a little mite of a room up three flights of stairs; that, in itself, wus enough to wear Tirzah Ann out; she never could climb stairs worth a cent. And their room wus very small, and the air close, nearly tight, and hot as an oven; they wus used to great, cool, airy rooms to hum; and the babe couldn’t stand the hotness and the tightness, and she began to enjoy poor health, and cried most all the time, and that wore on Tirzah Ann; and to hum, the babe could play round in the yard all day a’most, but here she hung right on to her ma.

And then the rooms on one side of ’em wus occupied by a young man a-learnin’ to play on the flute; he had been disappointed in love, and he would try to make up tunes as he went along sort o’ tragedy style, and dirge-like, the most unearthly and woe-begone sounds, they say, that they ever heard or heard on. They say it wus enough to make anybody’s blood run cold in their veins to hear ’em; he kept his room most of the time, and played day and night. He had ruther be alone day times and play, than go into company, and nights he couldn’t sleep, so he would set up and play. They wus sorry for him, they said they wus; they knew his mind must be in a awful state, and his sufferin’s intense, or he couldn’t harrow up anybody’s feelin’s so. But that didn’t make it more the easier for them.

Tirzah Ann and Whitfield both says that tongue can’t never tell the sufferin’s they underwent from that flute, and their feelin’s for that young man; they expected every day to hear he had made way with himself, his agony seemed so great, and he would groan and rithe so fearful, when he wasn’t playin’.

And the room on the other side of ’em wus occupied by a young woman who owned a melodien; she went into company a good deal, and her spells of playin’ and singin’ would come on after she had got home from parties. She had a good many bo’s, and wus happy dispositioned naturally; and they said some nights, it would seem as if there wouldn’t be no end to her playin’ and singin’ love songs, and performin’ quiet pieces, polkys, and waltzes, and such. Tirzah Ann and Whitfield are both good-hearted as they can be, and they said they didn’t want to throw no shade over young hearts; they had been young themselves not much more than two years ago; they knew by experience what it wus to be sentimental, and they felt to sympathize with the gladness and highlarity of a young heart, and they didn’t want to do nothin’ to break it up. But still it came tough on ’em—dretful. I s’pose the sufferin’s couldn’t be told that they suffered from them two musicianers. And the babe not bein’ used to such rackets, nights, would get skairt, and almost go into hysterick fits. And two or three nights, Tirzah Ann had ’em, too—the hystericks. I don’t know what kept Whitfield up; he says no mony would tempt him to go through it agin; I s’pose she almost tore him to pieces; but she wasn’t to blame, she didn’t know what she was a-doin’.

It hain’t no use to blame Tirzah Ann now, after it is all over with; but she sees it plain enough now, and she’s a-sufferin’ from the effects of it, her tryin’ to keep up with Mrs. Skidmore, and do all she done. And there is where her morals get all run down, and Whitfield’s, too.

To think of them two, she that was Tirzah Ann Allan, and Whitfield Minkley! to think of them two! brought up as they had been, with such parents and step-parents as they had, settin’ under such a preacher as they had always set under! to think of them two a-dancin’!

Why, if anybody else had told me, if it had come through two or three, I would have despised the idee of believin’ it. But it didn’t come through anybody; she owned it up to me herself; I couldn’t hardly believe my ear when she told me, but I had to. They had parties there every evenin’ in the parlor, and Mrs. Skidmore and her husband went to ’em, and they danced. I didn’t say nothin’ to hurt her feelin’s, her mean looked so dretful, and I see she was a-gettin’ her pay for her sinfulness, but I groaned loud and frequent, while she wus a-tellin’ me of this, (entirely unbeknown to me).

Here was where Whitfield got so lame. He never had danced a step before in his life, nor Tirzah Ann nuther. But Skidmore and his wife danced every night, and Tirzah Ann, bein’ so ambitius, was determined that she and Whitfield should dance as much as they did, if they fell down a-doin’ of it; and not bein’ used to it, it almost killed ’em, besides loosening their mussels, so that it will be weeks and weeks before they get as strong and as firm as they wus before, and I don’t know as they ever will. When mussels get to totterin’, it is almost impossible to get ’em as firm as they wus before. But truely they got their pay, Whitfield bein’ so tuckered out with the rest and recreation he had been a-havin’, it lamed him awfully, rheumatiz set in, and he wus most bed-rid. And then a base ball hit him, when he was a-playin’; a base ball hit him on the elbo’, right on the crazy-bone; I s’pose he wus most crazy, the pain wus terrible, but the doctor says, with care, he may get over it, and use his arm agin. At present, it is in a sling.

It seemed to hurt Tirzah Ann more innardly; it brought on a kind of weakness. But where she got her death-blow (as it were), what laid her up, and made her sick a-bed, was goin’ in a-bathin’, and drinkin’ so much mineral water. Ridin’ out on the water was bad for ’em both, as I said; made ’em as sick as snipes, they were dretfully sick every time they went, almost split their stomachs. But if she had kep’ on top of the water, it would have been better for her, sick as she was. But she wasn’t goin’ to have Mrs. Skidmore bathe, and she not, not if she got drowned in the operations. She was always afraid of deep water—dretful. But in she went, and got skairt, the minute the water was over her ankles; it skairt her so, she had sort o’ cramps, and gin up she was a-drowndin’, and that made it worse for her, and she did crumple right down in the water, and would have been drownded, if a man hadn’t rescued of her; she wus a-sinkin’ for the third time, when he laid holt of her hair, and yanked her out.

But she hain’t got over the fright yet, and I am afraid she never will. Whitfield says now, night after night, she will jump right up inside of the bed, and ketch holt of him, and yell the most uneerthly yells he ever, ever heard; and night after night, in the dead of night, she will jump right over him, onto the floor, thinkin’ she is drowndin’ agin; it makes it hard for ’em both, dretful.

The mineral water, they say, told awfully, and it went against Tirzah Ann’s stomach so, that she couldn’t hardly get down a tumblerful a day; she wus always dretful dainty and sort o’ delicate-like. But Mrs. Skidmore bein’ so tough, could drink seven tumblersful right down. And it seems she acted sort o’ overbearin’ and haughty, because Tirzah Ann couldn’t drink so much as she could. And put on airs about it. And Tirzah Ann couldn’t stand that, so one day, it wus the day before she came home, she said to herself that Mrs. Skidmore shouldn’t have that to feel big over no longer, so she drinked down five tumblersful, and wus a-tryin’ to get down the other two, when she wus took sick sudden and violent, and I s’pose a sicker critter never lived than she wus. It acted on her like a emetic, and she had all the symptoms of billerous colic. I s’pose they wus awful skairt about her, and she was skairt about herself; she thought she wus a-dyin’, and she made Whitfield promise on a Testament to carry her, the next day, to Janesville, alive or dead. So he wus as good as his word, and brought her home, the next day, on a bed.

They got round the house in a day or two, but they have been laid up for repairs (as you may say,) ever sense. They are sick critters, now, both on ’em. Never, never, did I see such awful effects from rest and recreation before. As they both say, one week’s more rest would have finished ’em for this world.

And besides these outside sufferin’s that are plain to be seen, there are innurd hurts that are fur worse. Outside bruises and hurts can be reached with arneky and wormwood, but how can you bathe a wounded sperit, or rub it with hot flannel? You can’t do it.

Now, this that I am goin’ to say now, I wouldn’t have get round for the world—it _must be kept_! But seein’ I am on this subject, I feel it to be my duty to tell the truth, and the hull truth. But it musn’t go no further: it must be kept.

Tirzah Ann didn’t tell this right out to me, but I gathered it from little things I heard her and Whitfield say, and from what others said who wus there.

If I didn’t feel it to be my bounden duty to write the truth, and if it wusn’t for its bein’ a solemn warnin’ to them who may have felt a hankerin’ toward goin’ off on a trip, I couldn’t write out the awful words. But it must be kept.

I mistrust, and almost know, that Tirzah Ann flirted—flirted with a man! You see Mrs. Skidmore, wantin’ to appear fashionable and genteel, flirted with men, and I know jest as well as I want to know, that Tirzah Ann did, not wantin’ to be outdone.

I know she and Whitfield quarreled, dretfully, for the first time in their lives; that I had right from her own mouth. But she didn’t tell me what it wus about; she looked sort o’ sheepish and weakin’, and turned the subject, and I hain’t one to pump.

But I s’pose from what they both said to me, they came pretty nigh partin’. And I know jest as well as if I see it myself, that Tirzah Ann bein’ so ambitius, and not wantin’ to be outdone by Mrs. Skidmore, went to flirtin’, and I mistrust it wus with old Skidmore himself. I know he and Whitfield don’t speak. Tirzah Ann never could bear him, but I s’pose she wanted to gall Mrs. Skidmore.

Oh, such doin’s, such doin’s! You hain’t no idee how it worked up Josiah and me, and mortified us. As I told Josiah that night—after we went to bed, we wus a-talkin’ the matter over—and says I:

“Josiah Allen, what would their morals have been, if they had rested and recreated any longer?”

And he groaned out, and sayed what galled him the worst wus to think of “the money they had throwed away.” Says he, “it will cramp ’em for months and months.” And it did.

A PLEASURE EXERTION.

They have been havin’ pleasure exertions all summer here to Jonesville. Every week a most they would go off on a exertion after pleasure, and Josiah was all up in end to go too.

That man is a well principled man, as I ever see, but if he had his head he would be worse than any young man I ever see to foller up picnics, and 4th of Julys, and camp meetings, and all pleasure exertions. But I don’t encourage him in it. I have said to him time and agin, “There is a time for everything, Josiah Allen, and afer any body has lost all their teeth, and every might of hair, on the top of their head, it is time for ’em to stop goin’ to pleasure exertions.”

But good land! I might jest as well talk to the wind! if that man should get to be as old as Mr. Methusler, and be a goin’ a thousand years old, he would prick up his ears if he should hear of an exertion. All summer long that man has beset me to go to ’em, for he wouldn’t go without me. Old Bunker Hill himself, haint any sounder in principle than Josiah Allen, and I have had to work head-work to make excuses, and quell him down. But last week the old folks was goin’ to have one out on the lake, on an island, and that man sot his foot down that go he would.

We was to the breakfast-table a talkin’ it over, and says I, “I shan’t go, for I am afraid of big water anyway.”

Says Josiah, “You are jest as liable to be killed in one place as another.”

Says I, with a almost frigid air, as I passed him his coffee, “Mebby I shall be drownded on dry land, Josiah Allen; but I don’t believe it.”

Says he in a complainin’ tone, “I can’t get you started onto a exertion for pleasure any way.”

Says I, in a almost eloquent way, “I don’t believe in makin’ such exertions after pleasure. I don’t believe in chasin’ of her up.” Says I, “Let her come of her own free will.” Says I, “You can’t catch her by chasin’ of her up, no more than you can fetch a shower up in a drewth, by goin’ out doors, and running after a cloud up in the heavens above you. Sit down, and be patient, and when it gets ready the refreshin’ rain drops will begin to fall without any of your help. And it is jest so with Pleasure, Josiah Allen; you may chase her up over all the ocians, and big mountains of the earth, and she will keep ahead of you all the time; but set down, and not fatigue yourself a thinkin’ about her, and like as not she will come right into your house unbeknown to you.”

“Wall,” says he, “I guess I’ll have another griddle cake, Samantha.” And as he took it, and poured the maple syrup over it, he added gently, but firmly, “I shall go, Samantha, to this exertion, and I should be glad to have you present at it, because it seems jest to me, as if I should fall overboard durin’ the day.”

Men are deep. Now that man knew that no amount of religious preachin’ could stir me up like that one speech. For though I haint no hand to coo, and don’t encourage him in bein’ spooney at all, he knows that I am wrapped almost completely up in him. I went.

We had got to start about the middle of the night, for the lake was 15 miles from Jonesville, and the old mare bein’ so slow, we had got to start a hour or 2 ahead of the rest. I told Josiah in the first ont, that I had jest as lives set up all night, as to be routed out at 2 o’clock. But he was so animated and happy at the idee of goin’, that he looked on the bright side of everything, and he said that he would go to bed before dark, and get as much sleep as we commonly did! So we went to bed the sun an hour high. But we hadn’t more’n settled down into the bed, when we heard a buggy and a single wagon stop to the gate, and I got up and peeked through the window, and I see, it was visitors come to spend the evenin’. Elder Wesley Minkly and his family, and Deacon Dobbins’ folks. Josiah vowed that he wouldn’t stir one step out of that bed that night. But I argued with him pretty sharp, while I was throwin’ on my clothes, and I finally got him started up. I haint deceitful, but I thought if I got my clothes all on, before they came in I wouldn’t tell ’em that I had been to bed that time of day. And I did get all dressed up, even to my handkerchief pin. And I guess they had been there as much as ten minutes before I thought that I hadn’t took my night-cap off. They looked dretful curious at me, and I felt awful meachin. But I jest ketched it off, and never said nothin’. But when Josiah came out of the bedroom, with what little hair he has got standin’ out in every direction, no 2 hairs a layin’ the same way, and one of his galluses a hangin’ ’most to the floor under his best coat, I up and told ’em. I thought mebby they wouldn’t stay long. But Deacon Dobbins’ folks seemed to be all waked up on the subject of religion, and they proposed we should turn it into a kind of a conference meetin’, so they never went home till after 10 o’clock.

It was most 11 o’clock when Josiah and me got to bed agin. And then jest as I was gettin’ into a drowse, I heard the cat in the buttery, and I got up to let her out. And that roused Josiah up, and he thought he heard the cattle in the garden, and he got up and went out. And there we was a marchin’ round most all night. And if we would get into a nap, Josiah would think it was mornin’, and he would start up and go out to look at the clock. He seemed so afraid we would be belated, and not get to that exertion in time. And there we was on our feet most all night. I lost myself once, for I dreamt that Josiah was a droundin’, and Deacon Dobbins was on the shore a prayin’ for him. It started me so, that I jest ketched hold of Josiah and hollered. It skairt him awfully, and says he, “What does ail you, Samantha? I haint been asleep before, to-night, and now you have rousted me up for good. I wonder what time it is.” And then he got out of bed again, and went out and looked at the clock. It was half-past one, and he said, “he didn’t believe we had better go to sleep again, for fear we would be too late for the exertion, and he wouldn’t miss that for nothin’.”

“Exertion,” says I, in a awful cold tone. “I should think we had had exertion enough for one spell.”

But I got up at 2 o’clock, and made a cup of tea, as strong as I could, for we both felt beat out, worse than if we had watched in sickness.

But as bad, and wore out as Josiah felt bodily, he was all animated in his mind about what a good time he was a goin’ to have. He acted foolish, and I told him so. I wanted to wear my brown and black gingham, and a shaker, but Josiah insisted that I should wear a new lawn dress that he had brought me home as a present, and I had jest made up. So jest to please him I put it on, and my best bonnet. And that man, all I could do and say, would wear a pair of pantaloons I had been a makin’ for Thomas Jefferson. They was gettin’ up a military company to Thomas J’s school, and these pantaloons was white with a blue stripe down the sides, a kind of uniform. Josiah took a awful fancy to ’em. And says he:

“I will wear ’em Samantha, they look so dressy.”

Says I, “They hain’t hardly done. I was goin’ to stitch that blue stripe on the left leg on again. They haint finished as they ought to be, and I would not wear ’em. It looks vain in you.”

Says he, “I will wear ’em, Samantha. I will be dressed up, for once.”

I didn’t contend with him. Thinks I, we are makin’ fools of ourselves, by goin’ at all, and if he wants to make a little bigger fool of himself by wearin’ them white pantaloons, I won’t stand in his light. And then I had got some machine oil onto ’em, so I felt that I had got to wash ’em any way, before Thomas J. took ’em to school. So he put ’em on.

I had good vittles, and a sight of ’em. The basket wouldn’t hold ’em. So Josiah had to put a bottle of raspberry jell into the pocket of his dress coat, and lots of other little things, such as spoons, and knives, and forks, in his pantaloons, and breast pockets. He looked like Captain Kidd, armed up to the teeth, and I told him so. But good land! he would have carried a knife in his mouth, if I had asked him to, he felt so neat about goin’, and boasted so, on what a splendid exertion it was goin’ to be.

We got to the lake about eight o’clock, for the old mare went slow. We was about the first ones there, but they kep’ a comin’, and before 10 o’clock we all got there. There was about 20 old fools of us, when we all got collected together. And about 10 o’clock we set sail for the island.